This weekend was the 24th time 
the people at WLFM, Lawrence University's
radio station, got really serious about
minutae in the annual Midwest Trivia
Contest.
	The 50-hour contest began at 10 
p.m.  Friday and ran until midnight Sunday, with
questions broadcast over the university's
10,500-watt FM station. Responses were
phoned in by off- and on-campus teams to
pile up points.
	In the off-campus Category, a 
team named Kinder, Gentler Good Company
finished first with 1,345 points; second 
was Zen Morons, 1,295; and third, Fake 
Rolex, 1,160.
	On campus, it was Pizza Hut Trivia 
to Go, 885; Armadillo Appreciation Society,
765; and Sammy's and Coleman, Dammit,
750.
	The team names, in the best collegiate
spirit of outrageousness, always are a high.
light of the contest. Among some of the
printable ones this year were Really Bushed
Spin Doctors,  Battleweary  Bushwhackers,
Shaved Sheep, and Bondage' with Slinkys.
	Larry Page, director of broadcasting 
at LU, for the duration of the contest is 
known, for no reason anyone recalls, as 
"Pope Pontius Page the One-Quartereth." He
chooses the prizes, and this yea? said they
would be body parts.

	First-place teams got a sleeve with a
fake hand. In presenting these, Page said 
that they deserved a hand. Second was fake
human feet, designed as dog toys. Second
place, Page said, represented "de feet." 
Third prize was telephone parts, because 
these teams, he said, needed more help.
	The annual trivia contest began with
that same kind of rebellious attitude.
	At the time of the competition's
beginnings, some students and professors
went off annually for a retreat to discuss
the weighty, serious issues of the time.
	This was simply too heavy for those
who stayed behind. They wanted to discuss
the pointless issues of the day. They did,
and it stuck.

	A highlight of the contest every year
is the "Super Garuda," the final, 100-point
question. This year's was:
	"What is the title of the Brown
University Library's two-millionth book?"
	The answer is: "Lectures on the
Function of the Main Food-Digesting
Glands."
	Incredibly, one team had the correct
answer, vaulting them, as Page put it, "from
total obscurity to relative obscurity," from
250 points to 350.
	The team was "Total Fabrication," three
off-campus adults, one a Brown alum who 
happened to have a copy of the Brown alumni 
magazine with a story about this book.